3 ms·
Interesting. I always interpreted it as, "Don't sweat the details yet- you don't even know if anybody wants what you are building. Find that out first."
by dhimes 11y ago
Interesting. I always interpreted it as, "Don't sweat the details yet- you don't even know if anybody wants what you are building. Find that out first."
- mark-r 11y agoThe mindset of "fail fast" wasn't a thing when Knuth wrote that statement.
- dhimes 11y agoThis isn't "fail" so much as it is acknowledging that neither you nor your customers will know what they like until they have something to play with.
- mark-r 11y agoMy point was that Knuth wasn't considering that possibility when he wrote the quote. In those times it was assumed that if you were writing software, there was a darn good reason for it. The idea that you might write software that doesn't fulfill a compelling need is a rather modern invention.
- over 11y agoExcept that optimizing cold code is writing software that doesn't fulfill a compelling need.